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5 Highest Paid Jobs for Healthcare Administrators – 5/15/2013

Everyone has their own top 5 list for the highest-paying healthcare administration job: the field's so large and vacuous that it's hard to think of what to count and what to exclude. Here, HEALTHeCAREERS has compiled information from corporate, government, and educational top 5 lists to bring job-seekers the true top 5 highest-paying healthcare administration jobs.

2. Chief Nursing Officers

Chief Nursing Officers or Chief Nursing Executives generally report to the CEO in a hospital setting and, as the name suggests, they manage nurses. According to the Master's of Health Administration resource site, these folks can earn as much as $178,734 per year.

3. Auxiliary Research and Development Careers

The Bureau of Labor Statistics tends to highlight rather unusual high-paying industries for healthcare administrators who work for companies ranging from Insurance firms to Medical Supply Manufacturers. Here, these industries come together under the heading "auxiliary research" because all these industries use healthcare administration insight to sell and market their products to physicians and hospitals. Healthcare administrators in Insurance and Employee Benefit Funds pioneer new ways to provide insurance for healthcare workers; those in scientific research and development manage drug studies and so forth; those in data processing help manage development of new software and personnel management systems for hospitals; and healthcare administrators in control instruments manufacturing and medical equipment manufacturing help manage the provision of very real, practical products to healthcare workers. All these jobs gross more than $120,000 a year, with the top average salary around $139,400. As a healthcare administrator, stepping outside the hospital to the folks who sell to the hospitals can prove a lucrative decision.

4. Chief Technology Officer

The Chief Technology Officer reports to the CEO and manages discovery and implementation of new technology throughout the hospital. This healthcare administrator can earn up to $121,000 a year, according to the Master's of Health Administration resource site. BLS reports even greater gains for technology officers working as healthcare administrators for the company supplying the technology, rather than the hospital buying the technology: administrators in data processing, hosting, and related services companies earned $136,140 on average in 2011.

5. Pharmaceuticals Project Managers

CBS news reported back in 2009 that pharmaceuticals project managers earned an average of $91,900 a year. The average pay for healthcare administrators has sky-rocketed since then: back in 2010, the BLS reported a median of $80K for administrators who now earn an average of $96K a year. The median means "the middle amount earned," of course, while the mean is an average, so the two numbers aren't strictly comparable — however, there's no question that with the demand increasing in this trillion dollar industry the pay only increases. The BLS does not include this job description in its census, so it's difficult to project what pharmaceutical project managers earn in hospitals today, but there's no question that this position remains an important and extremely lucrative one in healthcare administration.

Other high-rolling administration jobs include management of smaller doctor's practices, medical laboratories management, and nursing care management. Perhaps most healthcare administration job-seekers won't earn quite as much as these money-makers but HEALTHeCAREERS wishes each applicant a successful and lucrative job search all the same.